Tag: FI Litho

GLASGOW: The city’s Black Box News Service, Scotland’s alternative news agency, which ran Spike, the country’s ‘other’ newspaper, until costs caught up with the organisation and the paper had to be folded, is being dragged through the courts by Daeha printers of Oxford, for not paying the print bill on Spike, Issue one.

Black Box say: “We refused to pay the full print bill because they made such an arse of the issue – wrong size, shit paper, and those duplicate ads. If you remember the issue you will see what we mean.”

After their experience with Daeha, Black Box had Spike issue two printed at FI Litho, Gay News’ printers. Then costs killed Spike, the only alternative voice in Scotland.

The occasional difficulty we have with the Here We Are Again column is how to begin it. There’s always lots of things to tell you about though, if you’re interested in how your paper is getting along. If there are ever any aspects of the paper you particularly would like to know about and see in print and we don’t cover here, all you have to do is drop us a line, addressing it to Here We Are Again. By the way, the problem getting into this piece seems to have been overcome.

Letters

Mentioned in the previous paragraph is a line about writing to us if there’s anything you want to find out about. Whilst on the subject of letters, we at GN have noticed that there has been a general falling off in the amount of correspondence you have been sending us for publication. Maybe the Christmas period had something to do with it. Remember though, the success of the letter page depends entirely on you, our readers. So if you have any comments, criticisms, complaints, information or whatever, you think should appear, don’t hesitate to write to us, stating of course if the letter is for publication or not.

W. H. Smith & Sons

The other Wednesday on BBC 2’s late-night Edition programme, a representative of W. H. Smith & Sons, the well known monopoly newsagents, distributors and moral censors, was defending the companies actions of restricting the amount of papers, magazines and books they allow the public to read. The Smith’s spokesman wriggled and avoided most of the questions put to him quite well and left viewers with no doubt as to why they don’t stock certain publications etc. The reasons obviously being that this firm have set themselves up as censors, thus deciding the amount of information, entertainment and awareness they think the British public should be able to get its hands on. Another gentleman on the programme, who squirmed delightfully and passively to the tune of Big Brother W. H. Smiths, ended the discussion with a most historically ludicrous comment — straight out of the Dark Ages – for he remarked that people in the provinces did not want or require the papers, magazines, et al that Smith’s won’t handle. What absolute rubbish. As Colin Wilson said in his recent book Order Of Assassins, ‘creative evolution’ is a must for a progressing and expanding society, and what better way is there of helping people to evolve and reach new levels of awareness than by supplying them with all available information and telling them of new ideas and theories that are currently being developed.

No News, Maybe?

Whilst a large number of our readers, and organisations, send us details and news of what is happening in their areas, there are far too many cities, towns and counties that we never receive anything from. Possibly the reason for this is that they have not yet heard of Gay News, or have been unable to get hold of copies (thanks to well known distributors who will remain anonymous). But this doesn’t explain away all the places where apparently nothing every happens. So come on people, let’s hear what’s going on in your part of the country, if you are not already keeping us informed. We are a newspaper, aren’t we? Please help us keep on being so.

Just so you don’t have to do all the work yourselves, Gay News is taking advantage of the news clippping services of Romeike & Curtice. But even they won’t be able to clear away all the gaps that appear in our news and information coverage. The rest is up to you.

Still Only 10p

Many of you when buying GN directly from a Gay News collective member remark, “Still the same price?” Cheerfully we allways chirp back, “Of course”. In this day and age, prices do not often stay static for very long, but we consider 10p to be a fair and reasonable price for GN and try and keep it the same for as long as we are able. That should be for some time we hope, even though we are intending to increase the number of pages in the not too distant future.

Personal Ads

As we said on the cover of GN14, that edition contained more personal ads than we have ever printed before. We take it to mean that you are finding the ads to be useful and judging by the amount of box number replies we send off, the ads are certainly being seen by more people than ever before. That’s great with us, but please don’t forget, if you have to be too explicit in your wording of an ad, we unfortunately will have to tone it down. The vast majority of ads are perfectly acceptable, so to the few people who can’t save certain things until answering the letters of those who reply to their ads, please don’t get too annoyed with us. As we see it, it’s better to have — for the time being at any rate – a slightly inexcessive personal ads service than to invite prosecution, which could well result in there being no paper at all.

Our ‘Gay’ Printers

F.I. Litho, our beloved printers, seem to be becoming the largest producers of gay publications. And good luck to them, they try their best for us. Originally they just printed Lunch*, then along came Gay News, and now Jeffrey* has joined the flock. We’re sure downtown Pentonville Road has never been so ‘gay’.

Legal Advisers

Whilst we are not allowed to mention them by name, it is against some sort of professional regulation, we would like to take this opportunity to thank our solicitors. The legal advice they give us is extremely helpful – many times giving us their time and ideas without us having to ask. And they always find time to listen to, and advise on, anything that is worrying us, no matter how trivial. Thanks a lot, we appreciate it.

Changes

In the next few issues of Gay News, we are planning to change and improve the basic design of the paper. We’ll let you know more about these alterations when we finalise our plans.

New Offices

Although there is a strong possibility that we will be moving to larger premises soon, until things are definitely fixed, please let us know of any offices you may know or hear about in Central London. We really have outgrown our present ‘home’ and are beginning to get a little desperate.

As usual, hope you find this issue up to our usual standard. Thanks for supporting us by buying it. Gay News No 16 will be published on and available from 7th February. See you then.

* Lunch is a monthly magazine, featuring articles, comment and interviews. It is associated with the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, although having strong independent editorial policies. Price 20p.

* Jeffrey is a commercial gay men’s entertainment magazine and is also published monthly. Price 25p.

The Gay News collective is a generous bunch, and we would love to give gorgeous Christmas presents to everyone. But we’re broke. If we had the money here are some of the presents we would give, and the people we would give them to.

To London Transport– the stock of exhibits from the Transport Museum at Clapham to replace rolling stock on the Northern line.

To Danny La Rue– Liberace

To Selfridges– an instant boycott by all the gay staff and customers of the store, which might make the bookstall manager think twice before telling us there would be no call for Gay News there.

To Lord Harwood– an LP of Leonard Bernstein’s opera Candide, hoping it would inspire him to put it on at the Coliseum instead of another Merry Widow.

To Alexander Walker (film critic of the Evening Standard)– a secretary, so that he doesn’t crack his nails on a typewriter, thus giving away the fact that he’s a … journalist.

To Bass Charrington– vast profits from owning the majority of gay pubs in London.

To All Gays– a “Welcome” from Bass Charrington.

To GLF– lilies – and thanks for the laughs.

To CHE– carnations and a computerised membership files.

To CHE and GLF– the capacity to love and understand (if not to agree) with each other.

To All MPs– a copy of Gay News, so they can tune in to the realities of the situation.

To F.I. Litho– yet another cheque for printing Gay News

To Anthony Newley– a nice modern theatre where he can stage all his shows – in Formosa.

To The Governor of Holloway Prison– a big bunch of flowers for allowing Myra Hindley half an hour of light and air.

To The Festival of Light– a power cut.

To The National Theatre– the collected plays of Oscar Wilde to remind them of what they have been ignoring these past nine years.

To The GPO– a two year work study programme of interfering with and losing so much of our mail and for indecent relationships with our telephone.

To Mary Whitehouse– a pair of ear plugs and a sleeping shade.

To the BBC– the retirement of Mary Whitehouse.

To ITV and London Weekend Television– programmes as good as the commercials.

To Sir Gerald Nabarro– more lady chauffeurs like his last one.

To Lord Longford– a halo.

To Malcolm Muggeridge– an airport at the bottom of his garden.

To Edward Heath– a cabinet made up of ex-grammar school boys.

To Harold Wilson– a political party

To David Bowie– an appearance at next year’s Royal Command Performance.

To Larry Grayson– some original jokes and a black mark for telling fibs.

To Chris Welch (of Melody Maker)– a record player and a job on the Financial Times.

To The Daily Telegraph– a losing law suit with Private Eye.

To The Sunday Telegraph– Richard Ingrams as editor.

To The Evening Standard– an ad in Gay News

To Private Eye– a bathchair on the cliffs at Hastings.

To Martin Stafford BA– A ‘Glad To Be Gay’ badge and a lifelong subscription to Gay News.

To Chelsea Police– a dictionary to look up the words ‘obstruction’ and ‘malicious’.